Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing(Retro Review)

Hello again everyone.

I got some nice feedback for my site now. I need to make a few "Feedback" posts every so often, just to keep up with the Jones.

First thing I learned wasn't exactly a huge shock: My Sleeping Dogs video sucked balls. I had formatting issues with the video files, I forgot to make the gameplay capture videos fit the screen, and the back ground music clashes with the gameplay sounds and my voiceover. Plus I used the camera and mic for my computer, which was bound to be crappy. Need to find my HD flip video recorder and a better microphone. Thinking about using my Rock Band Mic, but might opt for something more professional.

I will keep this all in mind during this week's video review of Farcry 3; with any luck, it will rock the house and give it the right kind of exposure.

Anywhoha, let's start with a bit of news and a follow up review

First the news: Remember that game I reviewed yesterday called The War Z?

You read that right. That controversy I wrote about earlier was a lot more intense then I thought. Apparently they had to make a formal apology and everything. You see, the people who made War Z, aka Hammepoint Interactive, tend to have a bad history of making promises they did not keep. They posted on the Steam store about having more levels then they had, more features then the game actually had, and when they promised to put more in with patches the fans were dismissive. Why?

Because the executive for Hammer Studios, Sergey Titov, did a similarly bad move in some of his previous games. Among the more infamous titles around the net is a PC game called "Big Rigs:Over the Road Racing". And like the now-up-and-coming War Z, it did not deliver what it promised on the packaging. This is the subject of today's review

Simply by seeing the box that the game was made in illustrates the point. You clearly see a cop car trying desperately to cut off a huge flaming Semi. It was supposed to be a game where you had to avoid dealing with cops while smuggling illegal contraband across the border before your competitor does.

Problem is, you never actually see any cop cars. And your opponent doesn't move. And if you turn too fast the game becomes more glitchy then an Atari 2600 in a magnet factory. The videos I posted should illustrate how bad the game was, and the fact of the matter is up until War Z, this was Titov's most famous title. Only due to the negative press.

I did not play the game, of course; they stopped even trying to sell it before I even heard of it. But I think I saw the entire game experience, if you can even call it that, with just these two videos. I think I was lucky not to waste my money on this.

The pattern might be what is called a Texas Sharp Shooter Fallacy, (Click this link to find out more) but it does justify the intense backlash up to a point, and makes it clear why such a mistake might have been made.

Especially when you compare it to a game made by Howard Scott Warshaw that you might have heard of follows the same pattern that both Big Rigs and War Z follows. Can you guess what that pattern is?

Howard Scott Warshaw's catastropic failure

No? Big Rigs, War Z, and Warshaw's ET game each and all had HORRIBLE production schedules. War Z tried to make an entire virtual world within a year, as promised. Big Rigs was originally supposed to be a small part of a bigger game that got split in two midway in development; only the pre-alpha title was released. And ET? only a few weeks before the holidays was what Warsaw started with. Not ideal.

Video games are a work of art; comparable to the Eiffel tower and The Last Supper. both were made with care, precision, time, and effort. You can't build Rome in a day, and you sure as hell can't make 10,000+ km of lush, detailed environments within a year, even if you are using parts from other games.

This and the fact that he seems to admit no true responsibility for the blatant mislabeling inspires a very special Seven Word Synopsis for him and him alone.

Seven Word Synopsis:

Get your

head out

of your ass!

Seriously, it's one thing to make a bad game. Even the best developers go though it; Warshaw is still hailed as a great designer, and continued making good press well into the 2000s.

It's another thing to mistakenly label your game. The only thing you really did wrong is fail to correct the description of your title prior to launch, and failed to mention that it was an Alpha. Not exactly something that gets you sent to hell.

But what will convince Saint Pete to pull the level and dip you into the Devil's flaming lava Jacuzzi tub is the fact that you turned right around and blamed the same fans who supported you every step of the way until you dropped the ball and blamed them for "Misreading" the information. Why don't you just post a picture on your twitter post of your middle finger? Save the 140 letters for something constructive.

Anyway, that's my Retro Review of Big Rigs:Over the Road Racing. The public spanking of Titov was free.